Looney Tunes
Perhaps the most famous of all the cartoon series, the Looney Tunes have become a staple of American animation history. The cartoons were originally started in 1930 by Hugh Harmon and Rudolf Ising. They starred an original creation known as Bosko. This series featured rubbery black & white animation usually set to music. Not really a complex character, he did bring popularity somewhat. He was later succeeded by Buddy when the Harmon-Ising team moved to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1933. Buddy is thought to be one of the worst cartoon characters ever made. He was quickly replaced by the "Beans Gang" which consisted of Oliver Owl, Ham & Ex, Beans (a cat), and Porky Pig. They all starred in a Technicolor cartoon, I Haven't Got a Hat. Oddly enough, the character first chosen to start the first real series of Looney Tunes without Buddy or Bosko was Beans. After a few cartoons, Porky Pig became the star of the Looney Tunes up until the mid-1940's. Daffy Duck soon became a black & white Looney Tunes star, but made color Merrie Melodies - something Porky Pig only did once more (in Old Glory) before the '40s. The history of the black & white Looney Tunes is not quite as complex as the Popeye and Betty Boop cartoons. Excluding the Harmon-Ising Merrie Melodies, which were sold to Associated Artists Productions, Warner Bros. sold the rest of the black & white Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies to Sunset Productions. They went on to remove the Warner Bros. shields from their prints and even remove references to the studio in the cartoons. It wasn't that long until Sunset Prod. became Guild Films in the 1960's. Guild Films was later sold to Seven Arts, which in turn bought Warner Bros. in the late 1960's. As the merger happened, the very last of the original theatrical run of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies were released to theaters. The originals made a come back, too. A process known as retracing colorization was used on most of the black & white Looney Tunes. No Bosko or Buddy cartoons were colorized (though Radio & TV Packages later had some Bosko and Buddy cartoons redrawn in color, without permission from Warner Bros.), nor did nearly all the rare one-shot Looney Tunes. The key stages of the process were done in Manhattan and Hollywood by Color Systems Inc. In some cartoons, flies would be trapped under cels and show up in the shot. Psychedelic color choices, such as red irises and red shadows were made. Typographical errors were sometimes made. Some cartoons actually lacked scenes due to them not being animated or being severely out-of-sync. These cartoons have shown up on TV and in theaters. Like the later colorizations for Turner, the Looney Tunes' retraced counterparts were probably shot on inferior 16mm stock and in Eastmancolor, as opposed to rich Technicolor. While many consider these colorizations as awful, keep in mind that this was the only way to colorize the cartoons at the time. That's not all, folks! In 1990, Warner Bros. started to have all of the cartoons which were redrawn in color colorized via digital technology. Thanks to the colorizations, the cartoons themselves were drastically cleaned up. The 1990 colorizations oddly took many color choices from the original redrawn versions, but at least the original artwork was left...just with color added. In 1992, a second batch of colorizations was made with better results. This batch resulted in a few more color choices, but had a mostly sepia and brown tint to backgrounds. The best group of colorizations was done in 1995. The color work was done with excellent detail and an amazing amount of color choices. Due to the computer colorizations, over a dozen cartoons were colorized for the first time since they were left alone in the late 1960's. These colorizations are commonly shown on TV, while some "redrawns" still are shown. Cartoon Network has exclusive rights to the cartoons at this time and can also be found on VHS & laserdisc. The redrawn colorized cartoons can be found on public domain videotapes frequently, despite these versions still being under copyright. Green = found Orange = partially found Red = lost Redrawn Colorized *'Plane Dippy' (1936) *'Fish Tales' (1936) *'Porky the Rainmaker' (1936) *'Porky's Poultry Plant' (1936) *'Porky's Moving Day' (1936) *'Little Beau Porky' (1936) *'The Village Smithy' (1936) *'Porky the Wrestler' (1937) *'Porky's Road Race' (1937) *'Picador Porky' (1937) *'Porky's Romance' (1937) *'Porky's Duck Hunt' (1937) *'Porky and Gabby' (1937) *'Porky's Super Service' (1937) *'Porky's Badtime Story' (1937) *'Porky's Railroad' (1937) *'Get Rich Quick Porky' (1937) *'Porky's Garden' (1937) *'Rover's Rival' (1937) *'The Case of the Stuttering Pig' (1937) *'Porky's Double Trouble' (1937) *'Porky's Hero Agency' (1937) *'Porky's Poppa' (1938) *'What Price Porky' (1938) - Only animation cells have been found. Porky appears to have been replaced with a human character. *'Porky's Phoney Express' (1938) *'Porky's Five and Ten' (1938) *'Porky's Hare Hunt' (1938) *'Injun Trouble' (1938) *'Porky the Fireman' (1938) - Only screenshots have surfaced. *'Porky's Party' (1938) *'Porky's Spring Planting' (1938) *'Porky & Daffy' (1938) *'Wholly Smoke' (1938) *'Porky's Naughty Nephew' (1938) *'The Daffy Doc' (1938) *'Porky the Gob' (1938) *'The Lone Stranger and Porky' (1939) *'It's an Ill Wind' (1939) *'Porky's Tire Trouble' (1939) *'Porky's Movie Mystery' (1939) *'Chicken Jitters' (1939) *'Porky and Tea Biscuit' (1939) *'Kristopher Kolumbus Jr.' (1939) *'Polar Pals' (1939) *'Porky's Picnic' (1939) *'Scalp Trouble' (1939) *'Porky's Hotel' (1939) *'Jeepers Creepers' (1939) *'Naughty Neighbors' (1939) *'Pied Piper Porky' (1939) *'Porky the Giant Killer' (1939) *'The Film Fan' (1939) *'Africa Squeaks' (1940) *'Ali-Baba Bound' (1940) *'Slap Happy Pappy' (1940) *'The Chewin' Bruin' (1940) *'Porky's Baseball Broadcast' (1940) *'Patient Porky' (1940) *'Calling Dr. Porky' (1940) *'Prehistoric Porky' (1940) *'The Sour Puss' (1940) *'Porky's Hired Hand' (1940) *'The Timid Toreador' (1940) *'Porky's Snooze Reel' (1941) *'Porky's Bear Facts' (1941) *'Porky's Ant' (1941) *'A Coy Decoy' (1941) *'Porky's Prize Pony' (1941) *'We, the Animals, Squeak!' (1941) *'The Henpecked Duck' (1941) *'Notes To You' (1941) *'Robinson Crusoe, Jr.' (1941) *'Porky's Midnight Matinee' (1941) *'Porky's Pooch' (1941) *'Porky's Cafe' (1942) *'Daffy's Southern Exposure' (1942) *'The Impatient Patient' (1942) *'The Daffy Duckaroo' (1942) *'Porky Pig's Feat' (1943) *'Puss n' Booty' (1943)